


For Whom the Bell Tolls

by im_fairly_witty



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie, Redemption, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_fairly_witty/pseuds/im_fairly_witty
Summary: When Ernesto De la Cruz was trapped under the second bell by the Rivera family, he lost everything: his fame, his fortune, even his good looks. Now it's exactly one year later, The Day of the Dead, and Ernesto has nothing to lose when he learns that there is a forgotten ofrenda with his picture still on it in a certain attic space in Santa Cecelia. He decides to pay his old hometown a visit, he has some unfinished business to attend to...





	1. Fallen

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Por Quien Suenan Las Campanas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303647) by [im_fairly_witty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_fairly_witty/pseuds/im_fairly_witty)



It had been a year since paradise had turned to hell.

Ernesto hiked the hood of his long coat forward as he ascended the steps of the Department of Family Reunions. The guards at the door eyed him sideways, but opened the door for him, not recognizing his face hidden in the shadows of the hood. One of the guards stared as Ernesto held the collar of his coat. The man had probably never seen bones as sterling white as Ernesto’s up close before.

A year ago tonight Ernesto had been crushed under the second bell. He had been left there, in the painful darkness for three long days, trapped and terrified as the police and Hector’s family decided what to do with him. Ernesto had worried during those days that he would yellow overnight, that he would crack and flake away into the second death once his reputation was destroyed on both sides of the marigold bridge.

An idiotic fear, he had realized later. No one ever forgot a villain. His bones were as snowy white as ever.

The bustling Dia de los Muertos crowds inside the building quickly swamped Ernesto. Shining alebrijes scurried around his feet and flew over his head while families pushed and hurried by in all directions, corralling their squealing children and waving call numbers above their heads in a colorful bustle. Ernesto spotted where he was headed and ducked his head, mercifully blending into the holiday crowd as he wove his way to the back of the building unnoticed.

It had taken a long time to get used to not being recognized, it turned out that the descent from godhood was a steep one, but even invisibility was better than the disgusted and horrified looks he got whenever someone did recognize him. Long gone were the days of his beloved gold-sequined mariachi suits, now everything he did was in an effort to remain unseen.

“Have you been helped yet Señor?” A hassled looking clerk with a clipboard asked him as Ernesto hovered by her desk.

“I’d like to speak to an ofrenda agent. Carlos if he’s here.” Ernesto said, keeping his voice low.

“Over there, he just finished with someone else.” The clerk said, barely looking at him as she pointed to an open office door.  
Ernesto nodded and drifted to the office.

“Hola Señor.” Carlos said, rifling a stack of papers as Ernesto entered his office. “How can I help you this evening? Having ofrenda trouble?”

“I need to know if I have any.” Ernesto sat across from Carlos and flipped back his hood. “I’m sure you appreciate my situation.”

Carlos gasped and startled back in his chair, dropping his papers.

“S-Señor De La Cruz.” He choked.

Ernesto knew he wasn’t a pretty sight anymore, over a hundred years of good looks had finally failed him. A large fracture spider-webbed across the left side of his skull, delicately framing his milky white left eye in its shattered socket. A gift of the second bell.

“Por favor Carlos, I just need some help tonight.” Ernesto said tiredly. 

Ernesto caught his wild glance to the office door, as if considering calling for help. He wasn’t technically an outlaw, the Rivera family had been satisfied with the police seizing and redistributing his ill-gotten property instead of locking him up for good, but that didn’t mean officials were glad to see him.

“I- uh, your face-.” Carlos glanced at his desk, the door, anywhere but Ernesto.

“What about it?” Ernesto cooly laced his fingers together as he leaned forward in his seat.

“No-nothing, I’m just not completely sure the ofrenda facial scanners will work.” Carlos fidgeted with his computer, probably as an excuse to look away. “But we-we’ll try Señor.”

Ernesto leaned back in his chair. In the past Carlos had always been well paid from his massive treasury of yearly Ofrenda offerings. Having crossing officers in his pay meant Ernesto had always been able to send others to gather up the offerings of his loyal fans to stockpile in his mansion for the rest of the year. That past habit of being paid off was probably the only reason Carlos was actually helping him.

“Hold still.” Carlos said.

A flash of light swept over Ernesto’s face and the old computer grumbled and hummed as they waited. Would anyone put up an ofrenda for a murderer? Had the little living brat Miguel destroyed him in the living world as well, or were his living fans oblivious?

“Good news and bad news.” Carlos glanced up at him briefly and turned the screen to Ernesto. “You do have your picture on ofrendas this year, but there’s only a few.”

The mocoso had really done it then. Ernesto felt an icy hot anger rising in him as he clicked through the ofrenda pictures on the screen, counting them. Uno…cinco…diez… The name of the person who had made it hovered under each one. 

Instead of grand offerings of guitars and wine like years past, there were now only meager ofrendas. A few rolls of Pan de Muerto here, a small sugar skull there.  
Quince…veinte….veinticinco… He clicked faster and faster, seeing the list already coming to an end on the side of the screen. 

The very last ofrenda was a real insult. A high, dusty attic shelf with a single yellow candle burnt out on top of it. Beside the candle lay a tipped-over framed photo of himself, a single marigold petal resting on top. Mostly likely a completely forsaken ofrenda of years past.

Ernesto gripped the leg of his pants, making the ache in his bandaged humerus bone flare up. Only a couple dozen pitiful ofrenda offerings. Last year there had been thousands of fan shrines in his honor, and all of it was gone. Gone because of a brat he hadn’t been able to kill when he’d had the chance. He looked at the disgusting picture again. 

Miguel Rivera

He blinked, looking at the screen again, convinced his distraught mind and one good eye were playing tricks on him. But no. Under the ofrenda the name still hovered. 

Miguel Rivera

The brat had left him a forgotten ofrenda? Likely in his own attic.

It did make a kind of sense though. Miguel had been convinced Ernesto was his ancestor when they’d first met, perhaps this was the remnant of a hastily struck ofrenda once the boy had escaped back home?

“I’m sorry Señor.” Carlos said hesitantly, looking unsure at Ernesto’s reaction. “Are you alright?”

“Perfectly.” Ernesto made up his mind in a moment. He clicked back to a different ofrenda picture and stood. “I have a few fans left it seems, I think I’ll pay them a visit.”

“Good luck,” Carlos looked relieved as he righted his computer screen. “And feliz Dia de los Muertos, Señor.”

Ernesto smiled grimly to himself as he pulled his hood back up and exited the department building, ignoring the accompanying ache on the left side of his face. Looking up he could see an orange glow in the distance where the flower bridge lit up the dark horizon.

He set off in its direction for the first time in decades, his scuffed and worn mariachi shoes hitting the cobblestone as he walked. 

He had some unfinished business to attend to.


	2. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Land of the Living

The sight of his mausoleum was the first slap in the face.

Ernesto let his hood fall back as he stared up at the white stone building that had been built in his honor. A green spray of light from nearby fireworks washed over the building, briefly illuminating the board that had been hung around his effigie’s neck.

“Forget you.”

He walked up the trash littered stone steps, passing through the locked door effortlessly now that he was in a true spirit form.

Everything inside was covered in thick dust. The edges of the floor were lined with desiccated marigold petals, obviously not laid down for this year. An oil portrait of himself hung over the marble sarcophagus that presumably held his mortal remains. Between them three metal brackets jutted from the wall like broken ribs, missing whatever they had been built to hold.

He walked to the sarcophagus and set a hand on the heavy stone lid, an odd tingling sensation raced up his bone arm. For the first time, he wondered what his handsome body had looked like after he had been crushed to death by the first bell.

Ernesto shivered and pulled his hand away. He noticed some mostly scrubbed away red graffiti on the side of the stone box, he was only able to make out the first few letters: “MUR”

A sticky hot feeling crept up his spine as he turned away helplessly, unable to even straighten the slightly askew lid of his final resting place in his translucent state. He grit his teeth as he passed back out through the barred door.

How dare these people desecrate his grave. Ofrendas were one thing, this kind of spite was quite another. This was his own hometown, it had been his generations before it had ever been home to whatever tonto had decided to graffiti his coffin.

Ernesto stalked across the cemetery, past dozens of properly respected graves festooned with wreaths of orange flowers, decked with worthy offerings, attended by the smiling living and the reminiscing unseen dead beside them. The warmly candle-lit scene of joy and family only made the pounding ache in his head worse. 

What did any of them know of love, what it was like to be truly adored by millions? What had any of them accomplished in life that was worth celebrating? Ernesto had clawed his way to stardom, had become a household name, had changed the musical world forever when he’d seized his moment. 

Hector had been a small price to pay for the return it had gotten Ernesto, and the world for that matter. Hector had been the selfish one, wanting to keep his gift to himself, to abandon Ernesto right at the critical moment of their careers. Ernesto had been the one to give the world the music it craved, that it needed, who had kept it from being caged up in one man’s home.

And now it was Hector’s descendant who had ruined everything.

Ernesto walked out the cemetery gates, weaving around other skeletons who were walking onto the cobblestone streets of Santa Cecilia, following trails of orange petals. He pulled his hood up again after an especially inquisitive glance from another dead man and turned to the path.

The petals here were fresh, glowing soft yellow as the dead tread along them. Ernesto’s shoes reflected the golden light as he felt the magic of the petals gently tugging him forward, guiding him to an ofrenda with his picture. Toward the Rivera home.

The streets all looked so familiar as he walked across town, nearly the same as the nineteen-hundreds with the same old arches and stucco and cobblestone, but now with a new thin layer of modernity over it. Plastic signage, electric lights that shone bright and steady, cars that put even the fancy fords he’d had the wealth to enjoy during his life to shame.

Even so, his feet guided him more than the petals underfoot as the memory of Santa Cecilia came back to him, the memory of the hundreds of times he had walked this road to visit Hector in his previous life. Visiting to practice their songs, to endure dinners with his new bride, to fake smiles when handed little Coco to hold. Above all, so many visits to plead, to beg Hector not to let his music go to waste.

Ernesto was pulled out of his thoughts as a barking hairless xolo dog and a street cat gambolled past his feet as they tore down the street, turning into a house’s courtyard down the road.

Hector’s courtyard.

Ernesto pulled back, suddenly unsure at the sight of the old place. It had been turned into a shoemaker’s shop sometime in the last hundred or so years, the family name painted for all to see on the stucco wall. Festive laughter and singing spilled from the archway and into the streets, eliciting grins and waves from passersby, both the dead and the living. He heard two sets of familiar guitar strumming coming from the courtyard.

Of course Hector and his family would all be here. Gloating over Ernesto’s fall from fame no doubt.

Ernesto walked casually past to entrance, glancing at the fiesta inside. There was the brat, proudly dressed in a maroon mariachi outfit and singing with all his heart, playing his song on Ernesto’s guitar. So that explained the empty brackets in the mausoleum, the little mocoso had stolen his white skeleton performing guitar.  
Beside the kid was Hector, playing a spirit copy of the guitar. The arrogant burro. That copy belonged to Ernesto, he’d played that instrument for the world longer than Hector had even lived in it. That guitar did not belong to the Riveras, it was his.

Hector glanced up, an irritatingly wide smile on his face. Ernesto ducked away and out of sight. He dashed around a corner and another and to the backside of the property, passing through thick weeds and piles of trash. He tried to lean against the back wall to catch his breath but to his exasperation fell right through it, sending him sprawling on the tile floor inside.

He looked up and was greeted by the warm, dancing orange light of an ofrenda. Several tiers high and staggering under a collection of carvings, shoes, candles and a blanket of marigolds, the ofrenda took up the entire small room. 

At the very top sat an old picture of Hector with his family. He looked just as he had the day he’d finally been coaxed away to perform music on the road. So he’d had gotten his picture put up anyway after all Ernesto had done last year to prevent it. 

Ernesto pulled himself to his feet, folding his arms tight and seething inside as he stared at the ofrenda. Yes this was despicable, yes they had stolen his happiness, his reputation, everything he’d worked so hard for, but what could he possibly do about it now? Miguel was out of his realm, literally out of his reach. The dead Riveras were enough in number to overwhelm him in a direct confrontation anyway even if he could somehow touch the boy.

He clenched his fists, trembling with anger. If only the blasted curse had stuck on Miguel, Ernesto would be able to get at him, to at least cut short whatever time he had among the living in the only kind of revenge left to him.

Ernesto clenched his teeth against the howl of anger rising in his chest and viciously swung an arm at the side display of the ofrenda.

To his shock a manic swirl of petals flew off the tabletop, glowing a deeper orange than usual, and a single painted ceramic alebrije tipped off the table, shattering to pieces at his feet.

He stared at the broken figurine on the floor, then at his hand.

A slow smile crept up his lips.

Perhaps some of last years’ curse hadn’t quite worn off after all.


	3. Cursed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seizing a moment

Ernesto swiped an arm at the ofrenda again, experimentally this time. Not a single petal moved.  
He frowned and crouched to look at the shattered ceramic on the ground. 

There were only two things he knew of that could straddle the lands of the living and the dead, alebrijes and curses. Alebrijes could choose their form at will, appearing as a normal animal or an invisible spirit-guide, but curses were much more complicated. Curses had causes.

Miguel’s curse had been triggered when he’d stolen the very guitar Ernesto could hear him playing in the courtyard. Perhaps that theft was what still connected the boy to Ernesto, pulling Ernesto close enough to the land of the living to almost touch it. Perhaps it was that act of stealing that was powering this curse.

Ernesto stood, narrowing his eyes at the ofrenda. He raised a hand and concentrated, summoning back his anger and trying to channel it down his arm, thinking of all the ways he had been wronged. 

Miguel had stolen his guitar. 

He struck at a tall candle and it trembled slightly. 

Miguel had stolen his fame. 

Again he hit at the candle, this time it wobbled precariously in its metal stand.

Ernesto clenched his fist, digging deeper. Miguel had stolen his glory. Miguel had stolen the memory of the life he had lived, all the friends he’d made, his good looks, his good name, he had taken everything he had and destroyed all of it. Everything.

The silent scream of rage was back in Ernesto’s chest as he swung the back of his hand across the ofrenda table. A whole swath of flowers burst into a cloud of petals, a picture frame collapsed, figurines flew off the tables entirely, candles fell to the tile floor and sputtered out with wisps of blue smoke.

Ernesto glared at the disheveled ofrenda, a dark satisfaction flowing through him. So, that was it. As long as he could channel the hate he felt, he could interact with the physical world. He could get his revenge for everything that had been stolen from him.

“Mrrrow?”

Ernesto spun to face the doorway. The small street cat he’d seen earlier slunk into the room, an ear cocked to the mess on the floor, apparently come to investigate the noise. Ernesto turned back to the ofrenda. The cat wouldn’t be able to see him anyway and he needed to think of a way to get at Miguel without the dead Riveras seeing him.

He heard a hiss and looked back down to see the tabby staring directly at him. Back arched and yellow eyes startlingly bright in the darkness, the cat bared its tiny white fangs at him. A piercing yowl filled the room.

Ernesto took an involuntary step back at the unexpected force of the small creature’s bottled up anger. It really looked like it could see him, was the curse pulling him into the physical realm? He glanced at his hands, but they were as translucent as ever, a subtle orange halo still glowing around them.

The cat yowled again and the xolo dog from earlier came bounding into the room, tripping over itself in undignified haste before skidding to a stop by the cat. The dog’s wide eyes found Ernesto and in an instant, the dopey grin on its face vanished. It started barking wildly at him. The two animals walking forward together, as if to back him into a corner.

Ernesto took another step back, unsure. He hated big dogs. They had always reminded him of the chamuco dogs his father had kept, the kind that could knock you down even as a teenager and leave large bite scars at the command of their drunken master. Scars that had to be covered by long pants and sleeves for the rest of your life. This dog wasn’t a chamuco, but it could see him, it wasn’t happy, and the sight made a shiver run down Ernesto’s spine anyway. 

As he stared at the dog its familiar face sparked a memory. Hadn’t it been a xolo dog alebrije that had come to Miguel’s aid last year, lunging at him during the backstage fight at the sunrise spectacular? And then there was the massive winged jaguar that had mauled him, making him a foolish cat’s plaything on screen for the whole dead world to see before savagely slamming him under the second bell. 

Ernesto nervously glanced at the wall behind him where he’d stumbled in. It couldn’t be a coincidence, this cat and dog had to be the Rivera family alebrijes in their disguised forms. And they definitely remembered who he was.

“Dante?” 

Ernesto froze as a young boy in a mariachi suit came in from the courtyard, looking concerned. Miguel didn't have his sombrero or the stolen guitar, but he was here and he was alone.

“Dante, what is it boy?” Miguel looked up and for a moment Ernesto though he had been seen, but Miguel’s wide eyes looked right past him, to the ofrenda. The boy gasped and ran right up to where Ernesto was standing, starting to frantically gather up the fallen decorations. “Dante! Were you fighting with Pepita? No! Bad dog! Abuelita would kill me, you know she doesn't like having you here!”

The cat, Pepita, yowled again, staring off to the side of the ofrenda where Ernesto was invisibly standing. Miguel looked up and followed her gaze, but still looked past Ernesto.

“What is it?” he asked, then excited realization seemed to dawn on his face. “Is someone there? Can you see them?”

This was going to be too easy.

Ernesto reached for Miguel, but jerked back as a ball of fur and claws streaked up his pant leg and seized his face. He staggered back as the small alebrije tried to scratch his eyes, but he caught at the gato’s striped ruff and flung it away. The cat landed on its feet, skittering across the tile, already ready to launch at him as soon as it got its balance again. 

Alebrijes couldn’t change forms in front of the living, meaning she was trapped in her lessor form while Miguel was present, a handicap that Ernesto could use to his advantage. He had been helpless against her massive bulk and agility in the land of the dead, but he was more than a match for a house cat. 

Miguel watched the cat, eyes wide as Pepita skittered across the room. To him it would seem like the animal had been flung by an invisible force.

Before either of the animals could react again, Ernesto grabbed at Miguel’s bare wrist, channeling thoughts of what the boy had stolen from him.

Ernesto grunted in surprise as his skeletal hand passed right through Miguel's wrist. 

No, that was supposed to have worked.

Now the dog lunged for him, but Ernesto dodged behind the boy, causing Miguel to cry out as the animal nearly toppled him over. 

Ernesto growled and made another grab for the boy, this time seizing the stiff collar of the boy’s mariachi jacket. His spectral hand passed harmlessly through the back of the boy’s neck, but latched firmly onto the thick cloth. 

Miguel gasped as he was jerked to the side by the invisible grip on the back of his jacket. So Ernesto could touch objects, but not the living. That made things much more complicated.

“Pepita!” 

Ernesto looked up, hearing Imelda’s voice calling outside. 

The cat looked out the door, then back at Ernesto, ears still pinned back. The alebrije spun and darted away, undoubtedly to alert its mistress. The dog growled and whined as it paced fretfully, distressed at being unable to get at his master’s attacker.

It was time to go.

“Who are you?” Miguel said, uselessly reaching behind him to try and shake off a grip he couldn't touch. “Please, let me go!”

Ernesto looked at the wall behind him, the boy was still firmly in the physical world, making it impossible to escape out that way. 

Voices were approaching. The dog was barking frantically again. Ernesto adjusted his grip, and picked up Miguel around the waist, shoving the boy’s own sleeved arm into his mouth to try and muffle his cries for help. 

Ernesto dashed out the side doorway, running for a back way he dimly remembered using once decades ago. It involved shoving aside a workbench and a roll of leather that hadn’t been there before, but a minute later he emerged into a back alley behind the house. He turned and slammed the back door before the dog could follow them out. 

Miguel tried screaming, but Ernesto pressed the boy’s arm harder into his mouth, able to move the arm through the sleeve. He looked frantically up and down the empty alley. In a whirlwind of a minute he had gotten the boy, but he now remembered that he had no plan. 

The panic growing inside him felt eerily familiar for some reason, but his turbulent mind couldn’t quite place why. 

Ernesto jumped as barking and scrabbling claws skittered on the wooden door behind him. Well, the plan at this exact moment was to get away. He hesitated for another second, struggling to remember which direction would take them away from the center of town. He made a false start to the right, then turned back to take the left way, willing his feet to remember the way faster than his head was. 

He’d done it now and there was no turning back. He needed to decide what he was going to do, and he was going to have to decide quickly.


	4. Doubt

“Where are you taking me?” Miguel asked again.

His voice was low now that he’d learned screaming only got him a mouthful of sleeve. The boy was remarkably calm for having just been forcefully abducted, and it was unnerving Ernesto. 

He adjusted his hold on Miguel, still tucked securely under his arm, as he continued to creep along the outskirts of town. Here the patches of light spilling from houses onto the roughly packed dirt road were more sparse. The edges of the road itself were becoming more abstract, merging with patches of dead grass as they got farther and farther from anyone, living or dead.

“Do you need help?” Miguel tried. He pushed aside part of a dry bush to keep it from hitting his face as they walked by. “If we go back my Mama Imelda and Papa Hector can help you, they’re dead too.” 

In the very far distance Ernesto could hear shouting, the long, repeated kind, like when a name was being called over and over again. If Hector suspected foul play he could summon crossing agents with scent tracking alebrijes, but Ernesto wouldn't know whether he had until it was too late, meaning he had to keep moving. 

He stepped over a half tumbled-down wood fence and into the dry desert brush beyond. As he walked the cool night air seemed to lead him along. He could remember coming this way often as a boy, but couldn’t quite remember why. All the trees were different now, the dirt paths worn between them had grown over and been worn down again and again for a century now. He did feel safer here though, that much came back to him easily.

“Oh!” Miguel cried. 

Ernesto moved to cover his mouth, but the boy was looking down, not struggling. 

“I can see your shoes,” Miguel pointed down, “white, men’s cavalry boots Señor! Size ten, I think.” He shifted to look up, but his eyes looked past Ernesto’s face. “They are in very bad shape Señor, but they look like performer’s shoes. Are you a musician too?” 

Under the boy’s chin Ernesto could see a small translucent patch spreading around Miguel’s neck and disappearing under his collar. The edges glowed a spectral orange. 

The curse must be slowly seeping back into Miguel the longer they were together, pulling him back into the afterlife and restoring his ability to see the dead. Who knew how long it would be before the boy was fully in the spirit realm, before he realized who his captor was. Ernesto suspected it wouldn’t be so easy to keep control of him then.

Ernesto rounded a corner in the path, around a stand of scrubby desert trees, and hesitated as the left side of the path dropped away into a steep ravine. 

He remembered this ravine. 

He had sat on its edge as a child, staring out over the rocky landscape below as he wrote down childish song ideas, nursed a new bruise, or simply needed space to think. Somewhere to exist away from home, away from the shouting.

He looked at the sharp rocks far below, the moonlight only dimly reflected off some of the jagged edges that he knew were down there. It was the kind of fall that could kill a person. 

Especially a young boy thrown with no warning.

A cold breeze whipped through the tall dry grass at Ernesto’s feet, sweeping down the moonlit ravine with a noise like a rolling ocean wave. 

“Señor?” Miguel asked nervously. The boy looked up at him, but still without making eye contact, unable to see his face. 

Ernesto could imagine letting go. It would be easy. As easy as pouring a drink. There would be a small movement, and then gravity and a little time would take care of the rest.

And as soon as he let go all he would be able to do would be to watch. Watch as he lost control. A heart would stop beating, and a person would be gone, and he would be left with a body.

And then the real panic would set in. It would not feel satisfying, it would feel like he'd torn out an empty space where there used to be a person. Oh, he might hide the body, but he would always remember where it was, to him it would never really be gone.

He would remember the body, the face, the glassy pained eyes for years. It would take about ten years to forget about them, until one night he would wake up in a cold sweat, seeing only the face, twisted in pain as Hector collapsed on the street. And he would feel the dizzy panic of suddenly realizing he had no plan all over again.

And then he would drink. And then he would perform even harder the next day for massive, cheering crowds. And soon he would forget it again for a little while longer.

But he would never really forget.

A violent shiver ran through Ernesto as he turned away from the ravine’s ledge. Miguel yelped in surprise and Ernesto looked down to see that the boy had passed through his hands to unexpectedly land on the path. Miguel stood carefully, pushing himself up with an arm that was now entirely translucent. The boy’s eyes were fixed on Ernesto’s chest, presumably as far up as he could see now.

“Are...you letting me go, Señor?” Miguel asked hesitantly, pulling his jacket straight. He caught sight of his see-through arm and groaned, flexing his fingers. “Oh no, again? But I didn’t take anything this time!”

No. Ernesto was not letting him go. 

He seized Miguel by the shoulder and pushed him along, making him walk ahead of him. He was getting tired of carrying the boy anyway. Just because he’d died in great physical condition didn’t mean he didn't get worn out eventually.

“I think if you spoke I could hear you now, if you want to tell me what’s going on.” Miguel glanced back over his shoulder every few steps as he was marched further into the trees. "I don’t think you want to hurt me, but you do seem angry, or maybe you have something really important to show me?”

Ernesto was not being weak. He could have thrown Miguel off the cliff if he’d wanted to, he’d done it last year hadn’t he? Thrown him right over the edge at the sunrise spectacular, no problem. Easy.

But it had been different last year. If Miguel hadn’t been caught by his family’s alebrijes, he would have hit the ground and then gotten right back up again, shaken no doubt, but simply a fully dead skeleton. It might have even been painless, who knew?

Most importantly, there would have been no body.

There was a noise like a dog howling in the distance behind them. Ernesto shoved the boy’s shoulder again, making him move faster.  
Yes, Hector had died, but that didn’t mean Ernesto was a murderer, he took no pleasure in causing pain. Miguel would get what was coming to him, but after he was fully in the spirit realm. Killing him then would be easy and would leave no trace, no physical evidence for his living family to despair over. It was the best solution.

And who knew, it might even be painless.


	5. Remembering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A darkness descends

Ernesto should have remembered the pine tree.

There was no reason for him not to remember it. Subconsciously he must have known it would be there, or maybe his mind had been hoping the old thing had died in the last hundred years since he’d seen it last.

But there it was, standing tall and dense in the moonlight, right by the canal where it had always been.

He walked to the canal to peer over the edge, the flowing water below was glossy black, any moonlight blocked by the desert pine behind them.

_If you’re a man you’ll do the job right._

Ernesto winced, his father’s words echoing in his head for the first time in years as he watched the water.

_Don’t you dare come back until they’re dead, I’m not going to have you growing up soft._

Something inside Ernesto felt like it was slowly caving in on itself as he crouched down, staring at the river.

He’d been fourteen when his father had decided that no son of his was going to spend his life writing worthless songs no one would ever want to listen to. Ernesto was going to grow up to take over the family business of being drunk and raising fighting dogs, or else he wasn’t going to grow up at all. Despite his mother’s hesitant pleas, his father had made a mission of finding whatever made Ernesto the most uncomfortable, and then making him do it.

And one day that mission had brought Ernesto to this very canal. A stray dog had had a litter of puppies behind their shed and Ernesto’s father had swept them into a sack as soon as he’d found them. He’d handed the bag to Ernesto and ordered him to drown them in the canal. To get rid of the vermin. After all, they’d never bring him any gain, meaning they should be put out of the way.

A slap on the side of his face had gotten Ernesto moving, and before he knew it he was standing by the pine tree. Holding the bag over the running water on a night as dark as this one.

And he hadn’t done it. He’d wiped away his tears, opened the bag and gently taken out all three of the young, trembling chihuahuas from inside. All of them had fit in his two hands, they’d been so small. Holding them to his chest he’d taken the long way back home, going door to door on the far side of town until all three puppies had found good homes. It was that night that he'd gone to his childhood friend's house to tell Hector that he'd changed his mind, that he really did want to grow and play music together after all like they'd always dreamed.

“Is there something in the water?” Miguel asked, stepping closer to try and see what Ernesto was looking at.

The boy’s foot stepped on a loose edge before Ernesto could warn him back and the ledge crumbled under him. Ernesto lunged for the boy as he fell, summoning just enough anger in time to catch him and fling him back onto safe ground, away from the black rushing water below.

Both of them stared at each other. The boy’s breath was coming fast from the close save.

No. Not drowning. Not last year at his mansion’s pool, not tonight at the canal. No one was ever going to drown on Ernesto’s watch. He’d made that choice a long time ago.

So what did that say about him now? What would his fourteen-year-old self think of him now?

Ernesto stood, but the thought followed him. He’d always been able to be a different person here at the pine tree than he was at home. It had been where he’d hid when his father was especially drunk, where he could write his no good songs and pretend that one day he’d be a great man who didn't have to listen to anyone. A man with a different name, a man with a different life.

He looked at the base of the pine tree, remembering the last time he’d visited, back when he’d been alive. A coldness washed up him from its direction.

“I, I can see you...” Miguel gasped. He was still sitting on the dirt, looking almost entirely translucent now. “Señor De la Cruz?”

Ernesto looked at him, feeling achingly tired at the familiar horror on the boy’s face. Miguel had received his family’s blessing right after Ernesto had been mauled, three long days before anyone had bothered to shift the second bell aside. Had Miguel ever once stopped to think about what had happened to the man he’d so thoroughly destroyed? Or had he merrily gone back to his life without a second thought?

“Go to that tree and dig at the base.” Ernesto ordered, sounding as deadly serious as he could. “There should be a metal tin several inches down.”

Miguel looked scared, but didn’t bolt. Which was too bad, the short chase might have brought back the fire that was starting to flag within Ernesto. Too many cold memories were freezing it out.

The boy was wide-eyed, but nodded, keeping an eye on Ernesto as he picked up a nearby stick and started to pry at the dirt at the base of the tree, scraping it aside as best he could in the dark.

Ernesto looked out over the mostly flat surroundings, the trees were just sparse enough to give him a view of the town. A flash of movement caught his eye and he peered far back down the path they’d come up. Creeping through the trees and brush, barely visible, was the glow of an alebrije. A big one.

“Do you have it yet?” Ernesto barked.

“Yes, I think so.”

Miguel wiped away another layer of dirt to show a rusted tin square at the bottom of the small hole he’d scraped out. He dug his glowing fingertips at the edges and carefully pried the tin box out of the ground. He tried handing it to Ernesto, but Ernesto’s hand passed right through it.

“Carry it and follow me.” Ernesto ordered.

“Señor De la Cruz,” Miguel held the tin to his chest like it was a life preserver. “I want to go home, please.”

Ernesto looked at the boy for a long moment. Shivering and scared, Miguel looked anything but dangerous, anything but threatening.

What if Ernesto did leave him here? Call it off while he still could, leave the boy behind for family to find, let him go home.

Miguel would get a family blessing like last year, he would go home, he would be with his family, Hector would be with his family too. They all would be happy and together again, with their music and their guitars and their friends and reputations and what would happen to Ernesto?

Would Ernesto have a mansion, a home, a house, any semblance of a comfortable dwelling to go back to? Would he have a loving family or even a single friend to be with? Would Ernesto, the fallen star, the disgraced legend, De la Cruz, have anything to look back on but tarnished memories?

Would Ernesto have anything, _anything_ , to look forward to but the inside of a cold jail cell in the land of the dead? Scratching out a tally of the passing months on the walls for hundreds, maybe even a thousand years, until the day when history books would finally stop telling the fantastic tale of the murderous musician. The day that he would be glad, when he would _rejoice_ as a piteous wreck to finally yellow and flake away on a passing breeze as he was finally forgotten for good. The day that he would finally be able to leave behind the smoldering ruin that had been a perfectly perfect paradise, to merge with whatever oblivion lay beyond the second death.

Ernesto heard shouts in the distance, he looked up and saw that the alebrije light in the trees was moving faster. The heat inside him was gone for good now, replaced by a paralyzing hollow coldness that felt oddly familiar, like it had been lurking in the edges of his vision his whole life.

Yes, he could leave Miguel behind, but that would mean leaving behind the one blasted thing he still had any semblance of power over, the last claim he had to anything worthwhile in either of the realms.

This was the last choice he would ever make. Once he let go of Miguel, dead or alive, his life and afterlife would come to a close, deciding his fate permanently for the rest of his existence. But as long as he still had Miguel alive, this last choice was still open to him, staving off the inevitable for just another minute, just a little bit longer before it all came crashing down for good.

It was a terrible feeling, everything inside him felt sick, but it was the only feeling at all left in Ernesto, and he couldn’t bear trying to let it go.

Perhaps Miguel saw something dark settle over Ernesto, because he took another step back.

Ernesto pointed down the path leading back to the town. “Get moving.” His voice sounded more dead than he was.

Miguel silently obeyed, not daring to push back.

Ernesto followed silently, the orange glow the two of them put off faded under the harsh silver of the dappled moonlight slipping down between the trees. 

Where would they go now? Maybe it would poetic to “go home,” as Miguel had said.

Ernesto had no home, but he did remember the way back to the place his parents had lived, that he had actively avoided as soon as he was old enough, the place that he had disowned almost as soon as it had disowned him. Why not bring everything full circle.

Ahead of him Miguel looked like he was entirely cursed again, completely see-through, but must not have been since he was still able to hold onto the solid tin box. He had perhaps only minutes left in the land of the living.

And they would be his last, Ernesto had decided.

Last year Ernesto had everything to gain from killing Miguel. This year he had nothing to lose.


	6. Empty

The house where Ernesto had grown up looked...smaller than he remembered.

 He stood on the street across from the courtyard entrance. Everything was so old and worn looking, but the brooding sense of doom he remembered so well was gone.

 Two parents followed a little boy who came prancing out from the gate with an armful of long-stemmed marigolds. A chuckling pair of dead relatives followed the young family as they set off in the direction of the Santa Cecilia cemetery.

 “Why are we at the Santiago’s house?” Miguel asked.

 “You know this place?” Ernesto looked down at him. So it still belonged to the family.

 “Well not really, but my papá knows Luis, he delivers our leather for the shop.” Miguel pointed at the father of the receding family as they walked away.

“This is where I grew up.” Ernesto pushed Miguel forward now that the family was gone.

“But, you’re a De la cruz.” Miguel said in confusion.

“Only because I didn’t want to be a Santiago.” Ernesto said coldly. “My father threw me out when I told him I was going to be a musician. After he broke my arm.”

“He what?” Miguel eyes were wide as they walked through the archway.

“My family rejected me. That is why the world was my family.” Ernesto said, lingering on the word _was_.

He'd found a last kernel of anger to hold onto, a last shred of identity. Ernesto _not_ Santiago. He hadn’t realized how close to his core that anger was until everything else had been stripped away. He gladly held onto it, the very last thin ledge over the abyss that he could still cling to.

The courtyard was empty of any of the dead who might see them, a few living people were gathering up baskets of food and candles, apparently also on their way to the cemetery. Just as well, seeing smiling people in this dark place was jarring. Recognizing familiar facial features, a tia’s smile here, a papá’s nose there, was starting to shake him.

The strewn marigold petals underfoot painted a bright path across the courtyard to an open doorway. An ofrenda room. Ernesto looked over to see that Miguel was starting to fumble with the tin box, losing his grip as the last of the curse descended on him.

“Go.” Ernesto ordered, pushing him to the open doorway. As long as he was here to end everything he might as well do it in the absolute center of irony.

The marigolds underfoot felt like they were pulling him forward, but it was probably just the vertigo of impending damnation as he walked into the room.

He ducked into the room and was greeted by the sight of an ofrenda being straightened by a mother and young daughter. It was a smaller ofrenda than the Rivera’s and had more purples and blues with striped cloth hanging under and around it. There were the same candles though, and a small collection of framed portraits. It looked familiar for some reason, despite looking nothing like the small ofrenda he remembered his mother putting up every year.

At the very top sat a large, framed black-and-white photo of his parents, looking quite grim together and much older than the day he’d been thrown out. He’d never even tried coming back.

Beside him Miguel gently set down the tin box, his fingers passing through it at the last second, causing it to clink against the tile. The two living people didn’t seem to notice though.

“But why is Alejandro on the ofrenda, Mamá?” The little girl asked, she was pointing to a small framed photo on the side.

“Don’t be silly, that’s not your cousin, it’s just one of our ancestors who looks like him.” The mother picked up the girl so that she could look closer. “You know how pictures of Abuelita when she was my age kind of look like me? It’s like that. We’re all connected because we’re family."

Ernesto couldn’t help scoffing. What an appallingly sweet sentiment. Yes, you were all connected, until someone severed the connection. They probably also thought that everyone on the ofrenda were good people. Dying didn’t make you perfect, it just blurred out the bad memories if you waited long enough.

“Then who is he?” The girl leaned forward to squint at the picture.

“Oh, let’s see, I think his name was...” She frowned and took the portrait off the ofrenda to check the back. She smiled and nodded, carefully replacing the portrait. “That’s right, this is your great-great-tio Ernesto, that’s who your papá is named after.”

Ernesto’s breath caught with a sick, jagged feeling. Everything suddenly felt very fragile and brittle, like if he moved or even thought too quickly the entire world would shatter.

“But he’s not old.” The little girl said, looking at the other pictures to compare.

“Yes mija, he and his papá didn’t get along very well, so he ended up leaving when he was young. This was probably the last photo of him they had. His papá was very angry with him, but his mamá still loved him very much. She always made everyone promise to keep his photo on the ofrenda after the papá died because she wanted so much for him to come someday.”

“Did he come back?” The little girl asked.

“I don’t know mija.” The mother said, gazing at the picture. “I think he probably did, his mamá loved him so much.”

“I would come back.” The little girl wrapped her chubby arms around her mother’s neck.

“Oh, good.” The mother smiled and hugged her. “Let’s go help Abuelita carry some flowers alright?”

“Yes!” The little girl cheered as they walked out of the room, leaving Ernesto and Miguel alone with the flickering light of the candles.

After a long moment Ernesto walked forward, pushing through something that felt very solid, but that might have just been overwhelming pain.

There on the side of the ofrenda, an ofrenda he'd recognized from clicking past it earlier that night in Carlos’ office, was an old sepia photograph of a smiling young man. Of himself. Only months before leaving town with Hector, a few weeks before being thrown out by his father.

He dropped to his knees.

He had never come back.

He had never even tried.

The last foothold, the last kernel of identity inside him blew away into dust. After all this time there had been a home waiting for him, his family had gone on being family, he’d been the one to remove himself.

His mother, his quiet and shy mother had held out for him for years, even after she'd heard of his death. Had she followed his career? Had she known that he’d become famous? His father wouldn’t have cared, but she might have. His name had changed, but his face hadn’t. Had she seen it one day on a poster or in a newspaper or in a movie and realized where her runaway son had been all those years?

He had still been part of her family. He’d been part of these living Santiago’s family too, never ever realizing it, his partial story passed down for generations. The story of the son that had disappeared, that had never come back.

How had he ever believed in his own glowing facade, “De la Cruz,” a name he’d chosen as a boy under a pine tree for the future impressive man he dreamed of someday being. It had been such a sweet-tasting lie, a stolen identity, a cover-up. He’d never let himself think about the gaping hole in his soul, instead heaping layers of justification into it for literal generations as it slowly ate away at him year by year, until he was the kind of person who would sacrifice anything, anyone, to feed the growing emptiness inside.

And after all that effort, all those lies and self-deceptions, here he was, in his old home. Feeling even smaller and more broken than he ever had as a child.

And it was all his fault.

“You can go.”

“What?” Miguel asked, still standing frozen behind him.

“Go.”

There was a dashing scuffle towards the door and the boy was gone. Back to his family. Where he should be.

A long moment of flickering candles passed, the soft light reflecting across the glass of the picture frames.

Ernesto reached around behind him and picked up the tin box, the object blurring into two, leaving him with a spirit copy of it to hold. He stared at the corroded metal, then made himself open it, prying the rusted lid off.

Inside was the journal. The journal with so much pain woven into its pages that he’d never wanted to see it again, but with so much of himself in it that he hadn’t been able to destroy it.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then forced them open and forced his hand to open the journal as well. He flipped through it deliberately, slowly, letting each page inflict every bit of pain that it contained, letting it gut him, line by line.

Childlike scrawl in the beginning, words of songs no one had ever heard. After all, Papá had always said every song he wrote was trash. Then there were pages and pages of teenage lists of dreams, big dreams that someone else could someday accomplish, someone larger than life, an imaginary man called De la Cruz.

And far at the back was the final, the damning entry. The one that had made the book too dangerous to handle, too terrible to keep, too raw to discard. The entry that had been Ernesto ripping out his own heart to bury under a pine.

_It had to be done._

A shaky and hurried pen had scrawled the words a hundred years ago.

_Everything was falling apart and it just, happened. Hector is gone, he’s gone and there’s nothing I can do now, if I look back I’ll burn up. I ~~can still feel him in the room with me and it’s~~ _ _This has to be a beginning, I’ve gone too far, I have to be De La Cruz now. This is my moment._

And there it was.

This last bit of poison dripped into Ernesto and he let the book drop to the floor.

His younger self had feverishly returned to Santa Cecilia only a week later to bury the book during the night, then disappear before anyone even knew he’d been there. Maybe he had foolishly hoped that it if he kept it far away that it would somehow wither and die on its own, taking what he’d done with it.

Ernesto was no one. Not De la Cruz, not Santiago.

No last name, no fame, no fortune, no friends, no family. He’d had bright counterfeits of many of those thing for a long time, but only because he’d become a fake himself.

This invisible and terrible weight bent him forward. He put his hands on the tile, trying to brace himself, but he continued to bend, collapsing until his fractured skull touched his hands, clasped together in an empty prayer, alone at the foot of the ofrenda.

A long moment of silence stretched through the emptiness inside him. Even the passage of time felt heavy, pressing down on the empty shell that was left of him.

He was nothing, and even that was too much.

He had forgotten himself more than a hundred years ago, and that was why he had always felt dead inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter goes up tomorrow, barring unforeseen last-minute editing (which may happen since I want it to be good and it needs some re-working to achieve maximum effect). 
> 
> Recommended listening for this chapter is "I took a pill in Ibiza" by Mike Posner [clean edit] for maximum Ernesto regret feels:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYSIK4jpyVA
> 
> You're welcome. ;)


	7. The Important Things

“Where is he? I am going to kill him! That monster, that bestia, that-”

There was a loud commotion with Imelda’s voice leading the way as several sets of feet entered the ofrenda room behind Ernesto, but then it sharply cut off.

Ernesto slowly, so, so slowly pulled himself back to a sitting position. Even more slowly he turned until he was facing Hector, Imelda, and Miguel. All three of them stood tightly together at the entryway.

As one they looked at his face and their eyes widened, but Ernesto didn’t care. Not anymore.

Imelda recovered from her shock first and began to advance, boot in hand, the snarl on her face fierce enough to rival her alebrije’s.

“No! Mamá Imelda, don’t hurt him!” Miguel cried, jumping in front of her with his hands raised. “It's okay, he didn't hurt me!”

“Of course he did, he kidnapped you, and besides, that animal has caused this family too much pain, I’ll hit him any time I please.” Imelda tried to side-step him, but Miguel moved to block her again. “Miguel, move aside.”

“No, he saved my life!” Miguel stood his ground, a reflection of Imelda’s own stubbornness. “I almost fell into a canal and he saved me, I think he just wanted me to dig up an old metal box for him.”

“You cursed him so he could dig up a metal box for you?” Imelda glared at Ernesto from behind Miguel. “Hector, tell your grandson to step aside.”

“Ernesto,” Hector said, looking past the others, uncharacteristically serious as his gaze drilled into Ernesto. “Why did you come tonight? What was it you were doing with Miguel?”

Hector had always been so easy to push around, always good-naturedly playing off accidents or bad luck. Ernesto had only ever seen him really serious like this twice before, the night he’d tried to go home to his family, and then the night he’d realized Ernesto had kept him from ever reaching the train station.

“I thought killing him would make me less empty inside.” Ernesto said. He was too tired to lie anymore, even with the easy excuse Miguel had unknowingly offered him.

“See?” Imelda snarled, lowering her boot, “Hector, call Pepita, take her to the flower bridge and get crossing agents who can haul this filth away. He’s too dirty to hit with my shoe.”

“But...then why didn’t you kill me?” Miguel asked, looking far more confused than frightened.

“You said he let you go on his own, mijo?” Hector asked, putting an arm around the boy’s shoulder.

“Si, Papá Hector.” Miguel said, still watching Ernesto as he leaned against his great-great-grandfather. “He carried me outside of town to a canal, had me dig up a box and brought me here. Then he told me to go.” His voice softened as he looked up to his Papá, “I know he’s a really bad person, but he didn’t hurt me when he could have. I, I think he needs help.”

“Help? What he needs is a-” Imelda started, but stopped when Hector put a gentle hand on her arm.

“Mi amor.” Hector said, “Let’s listen to what Miguel has to say, he’s a smart one, if he thinks something’s wrong we should hear him out.”

Imelda grimaced, but then sighed irritably and folded her arms, but not without rolling her eyes. It was a true testament to their love that Imelda would hold her peace for Hector, the only person who had ever lived or died to ever have that particular honor.

“Ernesto, what really happened tonight?” Hector’s eyes traveled to the ofrenda, “And what is it that you’re doing here?”

Ernesto had forgotten Hector’s talent for keeping a cool head when navigating troubled waters. Hector had chatted and smiled their way into overbooked hotels and last-minute gigs and borrowed music equipment more times than Ernesto could remember over the course of their long friendship.

Always the resourceful creative, a level-headed survivor in life and in death.

“I died the night you did.” Ernesto said, “Maybe before that.”

He only had enough energy left to distantly hate how utterly pathetic he sounded, but the words trickled out of himself as helplessly as blood from a fatal wound.

“Maybe I thought since you had what I wanted, I could take it from you.”

Silence. Ernesto wished Imelda would attack him after all, or that Hector would attack him, like he had last year when he’d first realized Ernesto’s true colors. That had been something he’d at least been able to push back on.

But instead Hector just sighed, a long tired sigh. He walked over and sat down, cross-legged across from Ernesto. Ernesto looked away, the sight burning him.

“What I had?” Hector asked him, “What did I have that you didn’t?”

It felt like Hector had twisted a knife in Ernesto’s chest. Was he really going to make him say it outloud?

“You know what my family was like, Hector.” He said quietly, perhaps too quiet for Imelda to hear. “You had a family that loved you, that believed in you. I didn’t have that.”

“Ah, but you forget that you had me.” Hector’s gaze was somehow accusing and terribly sad at the same time. “Don't you remember? We were hermanos Ernesto.”

Another twist of the knife.

“You had talent.” Ernesto looked at the spirit copy of his journal, laying on the floor between them. “You had happiness. That’s what I was trying to take.”

Hector said nothing, looking at the journal as well. He knew what was in its pages as well as Ernesto, he'd even written in it too, making encouraging notes on songs or adding lighthearted comments to fanciful entries.

All but the last page of course.

Ernesto’s head bowed again.

“Your picture is on the ofrenda.” Hector said, looking over.

Ernesto looked up and following his gaze to his teenage picture.

“They said my Mamá put it up after my father and I were both dead.” Ernesto said.

Hector tipped his straw hat back, the smallest hint of a wry grin pulled at the edges of his mouth. “Your father? Last time I saw that old vejestorio was when he chased me out, he must have thrown a whole box of empty beer bottles at me.”

“He wouldn’t have wasted full ones on you.” Ernesto said. That had been the day they’d started practicing their music at Hector’s place exclusively.

Something inside him ached at this brief charade of familiarity. They’d never been anything but familiar with each other, having grown up together, and trying to find a neutral space between them, even after everything that had happened, was painful.

Another long and full silence stretched between them.

“We’re two old dead men Ernesto.” Hector looked away from the ofrenda and down at his bone hands. He grimaced as he rubbed his brow and then pulled a hand down his face, decades of fatigue communicated in the motion. “What happened?”

Ernesto was silent. He had happened. They were both old, but Hector had died young.

An entire lifetime had stretched between them somehow, but in that moment it very nearly felt like maybe they were both still foolish boys who were still friends and who still had their worst mistakes ahead of them.

“I am sorry.”

Ernesto had nothing left in him, but the words still came from somewhere. A confession that had been buried, pushed away, thrown out, but that had always returned to hide away in a small forgotten corner of himself.

Hector looked at his hands.

The moment should have been tense, should have been tingling with explosive energy, but instead there was a stillness, like a pool of water inside Ernesto had finally calmed after years of shivering and shaking. The quiet stillness spread through Ernesto’s bones.

“I forgive you.” Hector said, not looking up.

There was a strangled noise from Imelda’s direction, but it was short and then over.

“I’ve had a year to think this over,” Hector continued, glancing back at Imelda. “and every time I thought about coming after you, I got more angry. I’ve been sad inside for so, so long, Ernesto. Now that I have mi familia back, I need all the space inside me for loving them. Sorry amigo, but you see, there is no more room for you, so I forgive you.”

He looked up at Ernesto, the seriousness back in his eyes. “But do not come near mi familia again. I can forgive you for the pain you caused me, but you are not forgiven for the pain you caused them. That is for them to decide.”

He looked away to the ofrenda again and breathed deeply. Ernesto did not see weakness in Hector’s clear eyes, in his unburdened shoulders. He saw strength that he had never thought to look for.

Hector stood, sighing as he leveraged himself to his feet, like he was leaving a burden there on the floor that he had carried for a long time.

“Have you spoken to your Mamá?” He asked, looking down at Ernesto.

Ernesto shook his head. There was no excuse so he didn’t bother trying to think of one.

“She was a sweet woman.” Hector held out a hand. After hesitating a moment, Ernesto took it, allowing Hector to pull him to his feet. “Go and find her.”

“She won’t want to see me.” Ernesto said.

“You don’t know that yet.” Hector shrugged his boney shoulders. “Go and find her. The night isn’t over yet.”

And without another word, Hector put one arm around Imelda’s waist, took Miguel’s hand with the other, and then all three of them left the room together.

Their voices drifted back to Ernesto.

“I still think we should call the crossing agents.” Imelda said. “You’re giving him more pity than he deserves.”

“What do you think he’ll do now Papá Hector?” Miguel asked.

“Hopefully the important stuff, Chamaco.” Hector’s voice replied, “Now, we gotta get you back home, but since you’re already here I think we’ve got plenty of time for a few songs, eh, gordito?”

“Hector.” Imelda said as the group’s voices receded, but her smile was audible.

The happy impromptu song the three broke into was the last thing Ernesto heard as their voices slowly disappeared into the distance.

Ernesto stood in silence as the world continued on around him. The reedy sound of crickets chirped outside, soft candlelight danced on the walls around him, the warm scent of bread filled the small room from the humble ofrenda offerings.

He took a long, deep breath, exhaling slowly, but the peaceful feeling inside of him remained, unshaken by his movement. He slowly put his hands in his pockets and gazed at the ofrenda, still being careful anyway.

He still felt empty inside, but somehow it wasn’t a hollowed-out kind of empty anymore. More like he’d been cleaned out, and maybe now he was supposed to decide what he was going to fill the space with.

Ernesto heard chattering voices come up the street. Was Hector back? Had they sent crossing agents after all?

Well, either way, Ernesto would face it. Any and all of it. He saw now that being nobody meant he could choose what kind of person he was going to be. That was the kind of person he now chose to be.

“Nesto?”

He turned and saw an old woman standing in the doorway.

Her hair was tucked up in a braid, like it always had been when she’d been alive. She wore a different dress though, one nicer and more colorful than Papá had ever bought for her. The kind of dress Ernesto should have bought her a thousand times over.

“Mamá.” He choked on the word in shame, ducking his head, as if he could hide the damage on the left side of his face. “I’m...I’m so sorry.”

And then she was hugging him. Small and fierce and crying. He was hugging her too, and the years melted away as they both cried and cried and cried. Ernesto Santiago had a mother again, he always had, he always should have known it.

“You came back.” She said through her tears.

“Si, Mamá.” He managed to say through his own. How had he ever forgotten how she always smelled faintly of cinnamon?

Ernesto had no idea what was going to happen to him next, what his afterlife would look like now, not even what he would do tomorrow.

But maybe none of that mattered, because for the first time in nearly a century he could feel the emptiness inside of him being filled with something warm, something that felt real.

It felt like maybe it was love, and it felt like maybe that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for joining me for this story! It's been a pleasure to write and I have absolutely loved reading all of your comments. 
> 
> You can follow me out on tumblr for more of my Coco-related ramblings and art too, I'm always creating something. 
> 
> If you like what I do, you can also buy me a virtual coffee (a kind of digital tip jar) to help me justify my constant writing time vs. homework struggle. x) 
> 
> Cheers,  
> \- Wit
> 
> https://im-fairly-whitty.tumblr.com/
> 
> https://ko-fi.com/F2F270VJ


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